Nats approach to ETS shambolic from start to end

National’s muddled
approach to climate change has hampered progress towards an
effective and durable ETS for nine months, and its inferior
version of the scheme will cost the Kiwi taxpayer dearly,
Labour’s climate change spokesperson Charles Chauvel says.

“Labour saw the bill for the first time as Nick Smith
began reading his speech this afternoon, despite the fact
that it was apparently sitting in the Bills office from 9am
this morning,” Charles Chauvel said.

“If it
had taken the time to work with Labour in good faith on an
enduring compromise, none of these games would have been
necessary.”

“However, no one will be surprised at
National’s latest antics – they are a continuation of
the secrecy, double talk and gamesmanship it has displayed
throughout the process.

“The Government will not release
the officials' advice and the cabinet papers concerning the
cost of the revised scheme: although we asked for this
urgently under the Official Information Act on 15
September.

“It is clear that it will not be made
available until after the statutory time limit, well into
the select committee process.

“This gaming of the
system means the public are denied the right to see the
detailed costings of the scheme. Nick Smith’s evasions and
selective presentation of the facts thus far mean the only
way we will know the full costs and implications for this
and subsequent generations of Kiwi taxpayers is to see these
documents.

“The stakes of the game National is playing
are exceptionally high. Its scheme will cost taxpayers an
additional $2 billion up to 2030 and half a billion dollars
each year thereafter (see next
page).“Labour has no choice but to roll
back these amendments when next in office. National, by
failing to negotiate with Labour in good faith, and then
doing a shabby deal with the Maori Party that has no good
economic or environmental consequences, has denied New
Zealand ongoing certainty over climate change policy,”
Charles Chauvel said. A bad deal for
Kiwis

Under the amendments proposed by
National and the Maori Party, emitters:

(1) Get a much
longer period of transitional subsidy to continue to pollute
(last week, David Carter thought a further 90 years);

(2)
Are allocated ongoing rights to pollute on a 'intensity'
basis, without a cap on emissions, meaning that they are
incentivised to continue to emit greenhouse gasses (the
Australians at least will have a cap, so National aren't
actually harmonising when it doesn't suit them);

(3) Have
the dates on which they enter the scheme pushed out by up to
2 years.

(4) Thresholds for allocation are lowered so that
many more businesses will receive allocations under the
Scheme, and there is no commitment to recycle revenue into
complementary measures.

(5) The billion dollar
requirement to require a home insulation scheme that we
legislated for is repealed. Meaning that scheme continues
only as long as ministers want it to.

National will
borrow and cut to pay polluters

According to the full
Treasury chart at p33 of the explanatory note to the Bill
(and not the doctored one Smith tabled on earlier this week)
the numbers suggest that between now and 2013, equates to a
more expensive scheme to the tune of around half a billion
dollars. Between 2013 and 2017 it is calculated to cost
between 67m and $1bn less (the range in those numbers tells
you something). From 2020, however, it costs taxpayers over
$200m more in total. By 2030, additional costs are over
$2bn, and every year thereafter, $500m.

Harmonising
with an Australian scheme that does not exist

The
Treasury's regulatory impact assessment (p12 of the
explanatorynote) advises that the amendments, as far as
they allow for harmonisation with Australia, are bad policy,
since Australia does not yet have a settled Scheme in law
and may not manage to have one, meaning that we are
essentially harmonising with something that may never
exist.

What is missing in the bill

There will be
a Treaty clause in the final Act, but this will not be
introduced by the Maori Party till the Committee of the
Whole House, meaning that the select committee (and
therefore the public) will be denied an opportunity to
submit on it. Other alleged or actual concessions to the
Maori Party will not be included in the Bill but will be by
way of variation to Government
policy.

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